Sugarcane Planting Seed Fund

Sugarcane Planting Seed Fund

Kintu Michael is a subsistence farmer and also provides community-based technical guidance on agriculture practices to rural farmers in the Jinja and Kamuli Districts.

Kintu Michael is dedicated to improving the livelihood situations of the sugarcane outgrowers and their families who sell sugarcane to Kakira sugar factory. As both community based worker and farmer, Michael carries out numerous projects to improve the livelihood situations of local residents. However, the area is still largely impoverished where households seek any means to sustain their crop production for both cash and subsistence. Kintu Michael's household is one of them despite him being a community worker.

Kintu Michael is trying to start an initiative to overcome the livelihood challenges faced by his five-person family and another five homes that are critically in need by this revolving pilot project. He came up with the idea of growing sugarcane and he started saving money which accumulated to 2.5 million Uganda shillings. He also took an additional loan of 2 million to hire 10 acres of land covering a period of 4 sugar cane seasons of harvest (6 years). With the support of the members, they managed to clear the bush and drain the land as preparation for planting.

However, the project still needs an additional 4.5 million to purchase the
sugar cane seed, rent a tractor, and pay for additional labor
as support to open the ridges and plant the sugar cane sets.

Currently Micahel has 450,000 shillings in cash, therefore he started this fundraising in an attempt to raise enough funding for him to implement the initiative. With his previous experience in sugarcane planting, the project expects good returns after 18 months to sell to Kakira sugar factory as a cash crop.

it’s a well thought and planned project that has an assured market, and I think it is equally valuable to zoom in to consider the difficulties faced by households on the ground. Moreover, perhaps in a nerdy way, I genuinely hope Michael's initiative will be able to produce desirable outcomes to improve the households development as well as precious rural development experiences that can benefit a broader population.